


Better Off

by Szept



Category: Amphibia (Cartoon)
Genre: Anne isn't handling her fight with Sasha too well, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, She isn't handling it at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26901397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Szept/pseuds/Szept
Summary: Time heals all wounds, or so Anne is told.How much time, nobody knows.
Relationships: Anne Boonchuy & Marcy Wu, Anne Boonchuy & Sasha Waybright, Anne Boonchuy & Sasha Waybright & Marcy Wu, Anne Boonchuy & Sprig Plantar
Comments: 7
Kudos: 84





	Better Off

“Hey, Anne?” Something in Sasha’s tone makes Anne’s galloping heart painfully skip a beat. “Maybe you’re better off without me.”

She only has enough time to find Sasha’s tearful eyes with her own before her best friend slackens her hold, making her wight too much for Anne to hold onto on her own.

It’s all she can do to watch in mute horror as the other girl plummets to the ground. It’s all she can do to watch as her friend crashes upon the faraway courtyard, bloody and broken.

Dead.

“No!” She surges upwards, each heartbeat like a hammer on anvil, only to find Sasha, the tower- everything, gone. Replaced by the familiar dark of the Plantars’ cellar.

It takes time, how long Anne’s not sure, minutes at least, to calm her breath and heart. For her eyes to stop stinging and the snot to stop running down her nose. The sobs don’t go away, but they do quiet down enough not to rouse anyone behind the paper-thin walls.

(-)

“Put your sword down, now. End. Of. Discussion.”

She swallows what feels like frozen lead, the weight settling in her gut thick as dread and weighing her arms down twice as heavily. She can’t argue with Sasha. Never could. Never knew how to. Never allowed herself to.

The ball of mud hits Sasha’s face, as she knew it would. As it has done many times before.

“I think I’ve had enough of you, squeaky toy.” Sasha smiles hideously while drawing her sword, as she always does.

Anne closes her eyes shut. It doesn’t help much.

It doesn’t help at all.

(-)

“Hey Anne?” Sasha’s words bring Anne’s heart to a painful halt. “Maybe you’re better-”

“No!” She grasps her friend’s hand with both of her own, determined not to let her fall this time. “No, we’re alright! We’ll be fine! I promise!”

“How?” The girl’s eyes are hard. Her voice accusing. “You let me go. Remember?”

She does.

Anne wishes she could forget.

(-)

“They’re just slimy little frogs. They don’t matter!” Sasha’s voice is loud, desperate for understanding. Anne knows the feeling all too well. It’s why she strikes once more.

“They’re my friends!”

Her blow knocks the blades out of Sasha’s hands, the momentum carrying it forward to her friend’s cheek to leave an angry gash in the place of pale, moon-red skin. She never meant to hurt her friend like that. She just wanted to disarm the other girl, not- this. She often wonders what would happen if her cut had been just a few inches further down.

Her friend stares at her, unbelieving, fingers gingerly dabbing at the red waterfall flowing from the cut on her neck.

“Wasn’t I?”

(-)

“Hey Anne.” Marcy’s words cut deep into her soul as she utters them in Sasha’s place, hanging off the edge of the crumbling tower. “Where’s Sasha?”

Anne’s eyes slip past her friend and to the far-away group of toads, the far-away girl, limp in the toad commander’s arms. She keeps looking until they all disappear from view, slipping into the wilderness and away from them. Her.

“I-I don’t know.”

“You just found her and you don’t know? Why did you let her go?”

“She wanted to hurt my friends.”

“We don’t belong here, Anne.” Sasha’s eyes bore into her own, her grasp already gone from around Anne’s wrist.

(-)

“Hey Anne.” Her breath catches at the words, why- she cannot say. She turns her head to the side to look at the red moons in Sasha’s eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Are we still friends?”

“What? Of course we are! Best friends forever, remember?” She clasps her hands around Sasha’s own to reassure the girl. To reassure herself. She doesn’t know what they are. Not anymore. 

“Then why aren’t you looking for me? You looked for your real friend when she disappeared.”

“That was different. There was a monster.”

Sasha’s mouth turns wicked. Cruel.

“And I’m in the company of just the best sort of people, aren't I?”

(-)

“Hey Anne!” All the hairs on her body stand at attention at the words. She swallows thickly, doing her best to compose herself before looking up from her phone to the ceiling of the Fwagon from where Sprig has called for her.

“Yeah?”

“Hop Pop wants to know if- are you okay?”

She puts her phone away to rub away whatever it is in her eyes that has no place showing there at such innocuous words.

“Sure dude, you just startled me. What’s up?”

(-)

“I don’t wanna lose you again.” She can’t lose Marcy. She can’t let her go too. She can’t-

“You won’t. I promise.”

Just like with Sasha, she can’t stop her, either.

She watches, frozen in place and useless, as her friend rushes straight into the embrace of death. As she jumps into its jaws. She waits for her to come out, as she knows she should.

She waits until the very end. Until the ants devour them all.

(-)

“Hey Anne?” A cold hand closes around her heart, knowing what’s to come. “Maybe you’re better off without me.”

“I’m not,” she chokes out. “I’m not. I’m sorry we fought, I’m not- I didn’t want to. Please don’t go. Please stay with me Sash.”

“I can’t.”

Anne stays rooted in her spot, staring after her falling friend for an eternity.

She jumps.

(-)

“Hey Anne?” No, please don’t. Not again. Not again. Please stop. She doesn’t want this. She can’t keep doing this. Please just let her sleep tonight.

Her eyes shoot open and wide awake, no trace of sleep left anywhere in her mind. A relieved breath blows past her lips. Not tonight. She’ll be paying for it all throughout the day, but not tonight. She just… can’t.

Mindful not to wake Polly up, Anne climbs out of their bed and out onto the balcony. It’s not easy staying awake the whole night.

(-)

“What did they do that you love them more than me?”

“That’s not fair Sash, I love all of you.”

“Some more than others, obvie.” The girl’s thumb pointedly traces the fresh cut running the length of her cheek.

“You’d have killed them.”

“You really think that? You didn’t even try asking me for help, first. Don’t you trust me?”

Does she? Of course she does. It’s just- It’s-

Does she?

(-)

“Hey Anne.” Sasha’s gaze bores into her skull. “Follow your heart.”

Hot tears sting at her eyes. She doesn’t want to let go. She doesn’t want to go. 

“Don’t you?” Marcy’s words twist her gut with guilt.

(-)

“Anne? Anne, are you okay?” It takes Anne a second to get her bearings and place the voice of the person shaking her awake. It takes even longer to turn Sprig’s way and mutter something vaguely coherent.

“Mhuh?”

“You were crying in your sleep. What’s wrong?”

Oh.

She wipes the tears and snot away before trying for her best smile to present to her frog friend.

“It’s-” she stops herself from saying _nothing_. She doesn’t want to lie. She doesn’t want to needlessly worry her friend either. “Just a nightmare. Don’t worry about it.”

The little frog looks away, letting a silence fall between them for a few seconds before hesitantly speaking up once more.

“Do you wanna talk about it? I always feel better when I tell Hop Pop about mine.”

No.

...Yes.

“It’s Sasha. Mostly.” Anne looks down at her lap. At her wringing hands.

“What does she do?” Sprig says in a tone she recognizes all too well from her dreams. A voice of someone ready to take on the world for her.

“Nothing. I just- I let her go.” A silence falls between them. A comfortable one, but one still prodding Anne to go on. “Sometimes she falls to death. Sometimes she doesn’t. I don’t know, it’s silly. It’s been over a month now. I should’ve gotten over it already.”

“...I don’t think it’s silly at all,” Sprig says at length. “She’s your best friend, right? Hop Pop says only time can heal some wounds. I- I don’t know if I’d ever be alright if I had to fight you like that.”

Words fail her at the admission, her voice stuck in her throat. Instead, Anne does the next best, maybe even the first, and throws her arms around her friend. They stay like that for minutes, Anne doing her best not to let the new tears fall.

“Thanks Sprig.” She smiles an easy, genuine grin. “That did help a lot.”

(-)

  
  
  
  


_“Hey Anne.”_


End file.
